Electronics

A team of engineers has given microchips a new ability – the power of flight. Inspired by wind-dispersed seeds, these “microfliers” are shaped like tiny propellers to catch the wind, and may be the smallest flying structures ever made by humans.

Infrared spectrometers are expensive and powerful instruments scientists use to analyze the chemical makeup of a sample, and a new research project has made a breakthrough that miniaturizes this technology so much it can be packed into a smartphone.

Rice University researchers have produced a "smart" shirt that uses interwoven carbon nanotube fibers to provide steady electrical contact with the skin, allowing for ongoing gathering of data on heart activity.

Widespread wireless charging could one day keep our devices juiced up indefinitely. A new breakthrough has been made in that direction, as researchers in Japan have developed a system that can turn a whole room into a wireless charger.

Most memory devices us electric signals, but an emerging technology uses light, so data can be read back just by checking if an LED is on or off. Now, researchers have developed a new device based entirely on perovskite that can do both at once.

In reality, the inherent difficulties of recycling electronic devices creates many millions of tons of electronic waste each year, but new research shows how we might chip away at this problem by having key components dissolve in water.

Over the last year or so, Sam Battle has been gathering together interesting tech and gadgetry from the past and musical curiosities of his own design for a collection known as This Museum Is (Not) Obsolete, which is now open for business.

Working to widen the applications for electronic paper technology are scientists at Sweden's University of Technology, whose latest display takes on an inverted design to offer a full array of accurate and brilliant colors.

Researchers from the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology have developed a wearable health-monitoring system that's attached to a user's wrist, and can stretch by as much as 30 percent without affecting display or monitoring performance.

Researchers have demonstrated a new approach to harnessing the power of ambient radio waves, developing a novel chip that can convert Wi-Fi signals into power for a small LED, and possibly other small electronics and sensors.

Engineers at Columbia University have developed the smallest single-chip system ever created, which can be implanted with a hypodermic needle to measure temperature inside the body, and possibly much more.

Graphene just keeps getting weirder. Engineers at ETH Zurich have now managed to tweak the overachieving material so that some parts of a flake can be an electrical insulator while other areas act as a superconductor, just nanometers apart.